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Investors who celebrated their dividend windfalls over the holidays could have a profitable new year, too -- they just have to figure out which companies still have the money for more payouts.

Anticipating 2013 tax hikes, more companies made extra-dividend payments in the fourth quarter than at any time in the past 45 years, reports Howard Silverblatt, senior analyst for S&P Dow Jones Indices. More than 600 companies paid sizable special dividends and/or moved regular 2013 dividends into 2012, three times as many as in 2011.

"This unprecedented development will produce any number of distortions, and people need to focus more than ever on payout sustainability," advises Carlson.

Never easy, estimating which companies still have payout headroom will be tougher than ever in 2013 -- and especially for firms that paid it forward. Yields are likely to be overstated and payout impacts understated, agrees Silverblatt. A quick way to find those most affected is via Barron's sister publication, The Wall Street Journal and its table of holiday payers (online.wsj.com). Digital Journal subscriptions start at $22 for three months.

The list is comprehensive and sortable by several dividend characteristics. But it doesn't include payout ratios, the most common measure of dividend sustainability. It's a simple calculation, for those willing to dig up each company's trailing 12 months' earnings per share on Yahoo Finance (finance.yahoo.com) or Reuters (reuters.com), and then divide it into the year's dividend. (Calculations using forward estimates are more complicated).

A more convenient source is the payout-ratio table on Carlson's Website (bigsafedividends.com). The free list covers all payers in the S&P 1500 index, which includes most dividend issuers. The sortable table, which also offers useful information like yields and payment dates, will be regularly updated throughout 2013.

What constitutes a "safe" dividend? It varies by balance sheet, says Carlson, who doesn't like to see dividends claim more than 60% of earnings. The average payout ratio has been 52% since the 1950s, reports S&P Dow Jones Indices, and should end 2012 at about 36%. That's an encouraging sign. But averages cover wide disparities in individual ratios, points out Carlson. Smaller companies, in particular, may have overreached in the fourth quarter.

Large-caps can afford their largesse. The 404 payers in the S&P 500 index are flush, says Silverblatt. These companies' generally clean balance sheets recently included a record $1.03 trillion in cash and cash equivalents. The crème de la crème of this group are the 51 current index members that have raised dividends every year for the past 25 years, also known as the S&P 500 Dividend Aristocrats (us.spindices.com).

That's great, if you're satisfied with 2% yields, says Harry Domash, founder of Dividend Detective (dividenddetective.com). But subscribers to his $15-a-month newsletter are looking for high single- or even double-digit yields. Payout sustainability is expected, so Domash uses cash from operations, not earnings, in his regular screening of dividend payers.

"It's the ultimate source of dividends," he says, "and is free from other income-statement elements like borrowings."